And it seems the Dick Miller interview might have been included because "Most should also have no trouble finding a fun little easter egg (3:28)." So the only thing not ported over from the MGM SE is the teaser trailer.

Why is this movie always getting the shaft? I almost would rather not have Shout bother with licensing certain films if they don't have the ability to strike good, clean masters. I'm thinking I should just stick with the DVD. Bummer.

thank god I wasn't planning on getting this one. picture quality is bad. just like I didn't get phantasm II cause of picture issues...

Bad? If you like these films then I don't know what you'd be holding out for. The reviewer might be a bit of a douche (he doesn't like the movie because it isn't "Dante" enough for him? Gimme a break and cry me a river.) but even he gives a recommendation to it at the end for being a step up from the MGM disc. Overall, I take the vast majority of online reviews with a large grain of salt. I have no idea what their credentials are so for all I know, they aren't old enough to remember what prints from the 80s are supposed to look like.

Are there any blus that are open matte, though? Most films shot that way were because it was cheaper, not because they were supposed to be shown that way in theaters. Directors don't usually intend boom mikes in the frame to be part of their vision.

Are there any blus that are open matte, though? Most films shot that way were because it was cheaper, not because they were supposed to be shown that way in theaters. Directors don't usually intend boom mikes in the frame to be part of their vision.

Wasn't The Howling's original widescreen ratio 1.66:1? What the hell is it doing being shown in 1.85:1? And is there any boom mics visible in the full-frame version of this movie?

I would imagine 80% of movies shot in Super35 (or films shot in full screen and matted widescreen) didn't have any boom mikes or production equipment when open-matted to full screen. When a film is open-matte, ihe reason might be to make the film television friendly so that way nothing is cut off (even if widescreen was the intended ratio for those films).

I would imagine 80% of movies shot in Super35 (or films shot in full screen and matted widescreen) didn't have any boom mikes or production equipment when open-matted to full screen. When a film is open-matte, ihe reason might be to make the film television friendly so that way nothing is cut off (even if widescreen was the intended ratio for those films).

Actually open-matte means that the cinematographer composes each full-screen scene/shot in such a way that when the movie does go to theaters and gets cropped to widescreen that there's no vital/important info cropped from the top and bottom of the full-frame image............that's open-matte.

I would imagine 80% of movies shot in Super35 (or films shot in full screen and matted widescreen) didn't have any boom mikes or production equipment when open-matted to full screen. When a film is open-matte, ihe reason might be to make the film television friendly so that way nothing is cut off (even if widescreen was the intended ratio for those films).

I don't think that was the case for at least the first few decades. The reason why they created widescreen films is to get people back to the theater because too many people were staying home watching TV. So why would filmmakers give TV too much consideration when composing shots? I can't think of any specific examples of where something intruded into frame in the open matte presentation of the Howling, but it doesn't have to be anything quite so obvious as a boom mike either. It could be seeing the end of the set on top. The example I always remember is in Pee Wee's Big Adventure when Pee Wee is chaining up his bike you can see the chain coming up from a hole in the bottom of the bike in the open matte version.

I've no idea why The Howling is cropped to 1.85 from 1.66, but to my eyes I almost see little to no difference between the two on my TV. 1.66 is a European standard rather than an American one, so if that was indeed the OAR it was put in place to accomodate Europeans. No filmmaker realistically expects American theaters to show their film in that ratio so any detail lost between the two is probably in all liklihood unimportant.